


that's how I know your heart

by janie_tangerine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, Childhood Friends, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Poor Theon, Pre-Canon, Robb Stark is a Gift, bittersweet fluff, in which robb is the only person who likes theon and it's no news i guess, is that a tag, probably not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-04-06 02:51:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4205169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>In the following years, they never talked about that night - Robb later figured that Theon wouldn’t have thought that crying his eyes out against Robb’s shoulder while curled around each other in that bed was very dignified. But Robb remembers it very well, and sometimes he asks himself why no one else looks at Theon as if he... didn't mess something up - he’s not too surprised that Theon would be </i>insensitive<i> with everyone but him, at this point.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	that's how I know your heart

**Author's Note:**

> This happened... sometimes in prehistory. As in _years_ ago someone wrote on tumblr _a thing where the reason Robb is the only Stark who likes Theon is because he’s the only one old enough to remember scared, cries-at-night young hostage Theon?_ and I ficced it on a whim and then I never re-posted it and completely forgot about it. Then I was going back through the unposted fics tag and found it and I was like 'ah damn it's high time I put it on ao3'. So uhm yeah exactly what it says on the lid. Title from Gaslight Anthem as I'm sure no one guessed.
> 
> (Disclaimer: I'm not trying to make it look as if every other Stark not named Robb is a jerk and if I had written this from their POV I'd have sounded a lot more sympathetic because I get why they wouldn't warm up to Theon, but still, plot necessities.)

“How can you  _like_  him, I’ll never understand,” Jon says under his breath as he looks at Theon, who’s not so subtly flirting with one of the new maids as dinner is served.

Robb sighs and shakes his head, not even bothering to answer. If Jon doesn’t remember it, there's no point trying to explain. He should though - if Robb had noticed back  _then_ , Jon should have too. But then again Jon and Theon never spoke much to each other, and Robb is pretty sure that Jon hadn’t even been there the day his father came back from Pyke, so he figures he hadn’t seen Theon the day he set foot into Winterfell, in the very moment Jory helped him step down from his own horse.

Robb had been excited at the prospect of meeting someone new, and had frankly forgotten his mother’s warnings about  _not getting attached_ , since she always said the same about Jon anyway and Robb never took that into account. And then he had stopped in his tracks because Theon had looked completely terrified - of the horse, of Robb’s father and of pretty much everything else as he wrapped his cloak tighter around his shoulders. So he had introduced himself a lot more properly than he’d have thought at the beginning, and he remembers even too well that when someone had suggested to go back inside the castle Theon had visibly flinched.

Robb never quite forgot that.

–

“Gods, Robb, honestly, he can be so  _gross_! How can you even spend more than five minutes with him before going insane?”

“He’s not, Sansa. For real.”

Sansa looks at him as if she’s not too impressed with that answer, but - she was three when Theon came to Winterfell and by the time she was old enough to have a real conversation with him, he hadn’t been the same as when he arrived in the first place. He doesn’t tell Sansa that Theon makes him laugh most of the time, and he doesn’t even try to put the rest into words, because it’s not something you fully get until if you hadn't been friends with him all along.

He remembers clearly that for the first three months or so, Theon didn’t crack a smile once. He kept mostly to himself, looked as if he was afraid of  _something_  that might have happened to him any second - Robb didn’t really get it, but then again that war hadn’t been fought where  _he_  lived. Robb’s efforts to lighten his mood had constantly failed, also because Theon seemed to be set on not getting close to anyone. Then Robb had figured that if he came from an island then he probably liked the sea, so one day he had gone and asked Theon if he wanted to go take a swim in the godwood’s pools, just the two of them - it was the closest he could think of.

Theon’s eyes had gone wide at that, and as he said yes he had smiled at him shakily but sincerely, and so maybe now he smiles all the time, but Robb likes that look on it a lot better than the scared out of his mind one he used to sport.

Patience if he’s the only one who likes it - he’d rather see him smiling even when he doesn’t mean it rather than the contrary.

–

“He’s so - so  _insensitive_! Why can’t he be more like Jon?”

“Arya, he doesn’t mean half of what he says.”

“Then it’s  _his_  problem!”

Arya stalks away - searching for Jon, most probably - and Robb figures that Theon’s teasing about her trying to sneak off and practice swordplay and getting caught after a minute has ruined him forever in his sister’s eyes. No point in pressing the issue and telling her that it just takes some effort to see that Theon isn’t as insensitive as he looks.

Then again, she wasn’t there when he and Theon and Jon shared a room for a few weeks during the only winter all of them have seen until this point - it had become cold enough that most people were sharing rooms if only for extra body heat. The three of them had had separate beds placed nearby, but during the evening Robb is thinking of, Jon wasn’t there - he had caught a fever and was with Maester Luwin for the moment. On top of that, there was a hailstorm outside - Theon had been sleeping with three times the blankets Robb was using. Robb had been trying to get to sleep without being able to because the hail was making too much noise, and he was wide awake when he heard a sound that was definitely not hail pounding against windows. And he could recognize crying when he heard it.

He hadn’t even thought about it before grabbing one of his blankets, wrap it around his shoulders and climb into the bed with Theon, who had been obviously trying to keep himself from sobbing against the pillow.

“Go away,” Theon had said, his voice breaking on the last word.

“What’s wrong?” Robb had replied.

“What’s - I’ve been here for six months, I’m so cold I could freeze, I haven’t heard from my family since and you’re the only one who doesn’t look at me like I messed something up, what could be wrong?”

In the following years, they never talked about that night - Robb later figured that Theon wouldn’t have thought that crying his eyes out against Robb’s shoulder while curled around each other in that bed was very dignified. But Robb remembers it very well, and sometimes he asks himself why no one else ever tries not to look at Theon as if he... didn't mess something up - he’s not too surprised that Theon would be  _insensitive_  with everyone but him, at this point.

–

“Why do you spend so much time with him?”

“Because I like it?” Robb has no clue of what Bran is aiming for with that question.

“You do? Really?” No seven-year old should have the right to sound this skeptical, Robb thinks. “Why? He’s just - always laughing and teasing and boasting about how good he at shooting arrows.”

Bran isn’t exactly wrong, Robb thinks, because it’s not like Theon ever puts much effort beyond that for… well, everyone that’s not Robb. And yet - he recalls one time in the practice yard, just after that swim in the godswood. It had been clear by then that Theon didn’t really enjoy sword fighting, but he never tried his hand at anything else. When Ser Rodrik had asked him if he had ever tried any other weapon he had muttered something about bows, but no point in using those since they weren’t  _serious_  weapons. Ser Rodrik had asked why he’d say that, Theon had answered that it was what his brothers always said. Ser Rodrik had told him to give it a try anyway, and it turned out that after maybe a couple of lessons he was better at it than Robb and Jon put together, and they had been practicing that longer than him. Robb remembers that Theon’s lips used to curl up in a small, proud smile whenever he hit the center of the target, and so what if he likes to remind everyone that he’s actually good at it? Robb can see why he would. If you’re really good at something then why shouldn’t you feel proud of yourself? He also remembers how pleased he had looked when Robb had asked him if he would give him extra archery lessons, and back then those were the only times he didn’t look overtly sad.

“When you’re as good with a sword as he is with a bow, you’ll do the same,” Robb answers ruffling Bran’s hair, and that's the end of it. Still, he wishes he had the words to answer properly, but what’s the point?

No one else had been there and paid attention. No one else would get it.

–

_“You don’t have to do this,” Theon tells him a couple of days after the swim in the godswood’s pool._

_“I don’t have to do what?” Robb asks, sincerely confused. Theon had been wrapping his cloak tighter around his shoulders, looking completely miserable all over again._

_“Being nice to me. I mean, if you’re doing that just because you feel bad for me, save it.”_

_Robb doesn’t really understand the reasoning, but the thing is that Theon is looking at him strangely. As if he’s expecting him to say that, in fact, Robb had been doing that because he felt bad for Theon, but at the same time as if he’s secretly hoping that the answer might be different._

_Well, he wasn’t going to lie in the first place._

_“I’m not,” Robb answers sincerely. “I mean, I’m not doing that because I think I have to. I like you, so why shouldn’t I be nice to you?”_

_“You - you do?” Theon sounds remarkably hopeful at that._

_“Yes. Why wouldn’t I?”_

_Theon doesn’t, but he smiles again, for real, and not as tentatively as he had yesterday. “Well,” he had said after a rather long silence, “for being six, you’re not bad either.”_

_Robb bursts out laughing and Theon does the same, and Robb thinks that it’s a really good look on him. Better than the alternative. He hopes it doesn’t go away for as long as possible._

 

End.


End file.
